


let her go

by wakababy



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3403610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakababy/pseuds/wakababy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something strange is going down at Sochi. It's the day after the ladies free skate, and Patrick Chan, three-time World Champion, reigning Olympic silver medalist, is apparently also full-time stalker.....of Mao Asada. For what purpose? Mao is going to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let her go

**Author's Note:**

> Someone wanted a fic in which Patrick tries to get Yuna jealous, but his plan doesn't quite work out in the way he wanted it to. For the anniversary of the Sochi Games! (sort of.) The fic formerly known as Finding Yuna. 
> 
> Hashtag both Patrick and Yuna are a creeper for Mao. What is language barrier?
> 
> Reminder: These are very fictional renderings of real people and very fictional renderings of real events.

_This is the fifth time_ , Mao notes to herself when she spots a certain someone out of the corner of her eyes.

She can feel the glare pinned to her back. Mao is no stranger to receiving looks - from the media, in particular, and now after the ladies’ free program, from everyone else - but these sort of unfriendly glares are not usually from a fellow skater. This is starting to toe the line from strange onto very, **_very_** uncomfortable.

Over the next ten minutes, the stare only gets more intense, and doesn’t it hurt to exert your eyes for that long?

Things have not been the same since yesterday. Yesterday morning, Mao Asada had been lost. She had taken in Yoshio Mori’s words with her morning tea. “ _Asada has a habit of always falling at the most critical time_.” Her mind had been blank, and she attended practice in the morning even though she would’ve rather curled up in her room and cried over what happened last night. The childhood dreams of Olympic gold fluttered out the window, further out of reach than they had been in Vancouver. _But the second time around, it tastes less bitter_ , Mao thought, _more bittersweet_. By yesterday night, she was a hero. It took only four minutes for the world to change, and the subtle shift of things throws Mao for a loop. Today, the world has shifted once more. Maybe it’s the air. Maybe it’s the food. She props herself against the table, lunch forgotten for just a moment, but no matter how much she tries to compress everything down into a neat little list, she can’t quite put her finger on all the little changes.

But she can definitely pinpoint one. The most _glaring_ issue.

Today, Patrick Chan, three-time world champion, reigning Olympic silver medalist, has been hell bent on following her wherever she goes.

She first caught him trailing behind her on the way to breakfast and had chalked it off as coincidence, because, hey, maybe Patrick also liked eating breakfast at absurdly early times. It’s just a coincidence, Mao thought, as she bumped into him when coming out of the bathroom. Maybe he just happened to be loitering there. Just a coincidence, she kept on thinking two hours later, until she stopped to talk with Kanako - who had promptly hugged her, laughed, and then asked why Patrick Chan was currently staring holes at them.

What’s bugging her aren’t the piercing stares - she's used to that, having grown up under the scrutinizing eyes of the public. It’s rather the fact that it’s Patrick Chan, three-time world champion, reigning Olympic silver medalist, and apparently, full-time stalker of Mao Asada. Mao wants to find out why.

 

* * *

 

The next time is when she decides that this will be the sixth and the final time.

The weather outside is grim, and a soft film of mist ghosts over everything like a second skin. And Mao doesn’t want to say that she was expecting it, but she isn’t surprised when Patrick, familiar in the red and black of the Canadian uniform, shuffles out of the fog onto the bus.

No one is talking except the American ice dancers in the back. Everyone else is too preoccupied with their phone or looking elsewhere, and the quietness lulls her into action. So as the bus starts with a loud purr of the engine and moves forwards with the subsequent creak of the closing doors, Mao turns around abruptly to face Patrick, who has, very unwisely, taken the seat right behind her.

"Patrick,” she says, noting his look of surprise. “Do you….. need …….something?” She waits, apprehensive, and Patrick jolts at the sound of her voice, face flushing red, mouth open and grasping for words that escape him. He closes his mouth and looks particularly sheepish.

“When did you notice?”

“Ever since morning.” Mao says, adding a quiet “sorry” as an afterthought. “You stare too much.”

“Oh, well that – that is,” Patrick mumbles, cheeks still flushed, “you’re very observant!”

The urge to tell him that she is the most oblivious person she has ever known in her twenty-three years of life hits her, but Mao bites her tongue.

“Well,” she says again as Patrick sits stunned, pointedly not looking at her, “do you need something?”

“Uh,” he flinches in his seat, and after looking extremely torn for a minute, rubs the back of his neck.“I have a favor to ask,” Patrick finally says, looking forlornly down at this hands.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering…” he takes a deep breath and Mao has seen this expression twice, first at the Games in Vancouver, second just a few days ago after the men’s free program, and it is one of quiet resignation, “if you...could..... help me...”

The last words are anything but comprehensible to her as he spits them out in a small voice, almost hissing, and Mao leans forward, as if trying to catch them before they hit the ground.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Sunlight peeks through the fog, painting golden splashes on the two of them, and Patrick still looks everywhere but at her face. His eyes dart around to sneak glances at the hands clasped in her lap, before settling down in the same sort of quiet resignation that had seized him moments ago.

“I was wondering if you could help me. To win Yuna over. I kind of like her,” he sighs, “and god, why is this so hard?” Patrick doesn’t wait for a response, before rambling on, words now tumbling out of his mouth as his eyes glitter with an indignant fury. “Did you see her with Denis and Javier and just, god, why, we’re both the silver medalists, we should be paired together, fucking gala organizers.” Patrick manages to force out before turning his face away, embarrassed.

"Never mind, it’s stupid. Forget this ever happened.” She can’t see his face anymore, but the tips of his ears are still red. Mao can’t help herself, and before she knows it, she’s laughing so hard she can’t breathe and Patrick finally looks at her, face riddled with confusion.

“Cute.” Mao says, smiling at him, and he is at a loss for words. “I'll help you.”

Patrick gasps before breaking into a big grin, eyes lighting up. “Really?”

Mao nods, and even though she’s still smiling, she can’t help but feel sick. This involves Yuna Kim, the one girl that at one point, was the gravitational center around which she oriented herself. Yuna Kim, of shared podiums - of gold and silver and bronze - and teary goodbyes. Uneasiness roils in the pits of Mao’s stomach, and she has the distinct feeling that she’s just signed herself up for trouble. No, she thinks, this is not the time for this. _I promised Patrick I would help him, and I will_. She quashes the butterflies without a second thought. Besides, if she leaves Patrick by himself, he might do something stupid like try to recruit Maxim Trankov to help him on his quest for love. She has no desire to see Patrick in yellow pants.

“Really.” The bus creaks to a stop, hers, and she stands up, form swaying slightly as the bus thrums. “We will talk. Later. Just come find me when you want.” She needs to find Kanako first, because she needs someone to talk to.

“Okay,” Patrick is all grins now, eyes curved and shining. “Bye!”

At least this meant that Patrick would stop trying to roast her alive with his eyes, but only at the price of reopening a can of worms that she would rather have liked stayed shut.

 

* * *

  

 “Can I ask you one question?” Mao asks when it’s finally _later_. They’re sitting at a table together, hunched over steaming cups of tea and coffee and a plate of abandoned scones. The wisps of steam and feel of hot glass beneath her fingers brings a degree of coziness to the otherwise foreign cafe, and Mao cups her cold hands around the sides of her mug.“Why me?”

Patrick takes a sip of his Americano, and Mao watches with interest. “Well, who knows Yuna better than you do?” “We’re not as close as we were. Not that close.” Mao replies, voice calm and collected, the way she’s taught herself to act whenever this topic came up, the way she’s always acted, year after year after year when the media whispers questions over and over again about _Yuna, Kim Yeo-na_.

“That’s what you think,” Patrick reaches for a scone and picks it apart, ripping it into pieces, and Mao is intrigued, because Patrick will not back off where the media will, “But the thing is, you’re the only one that knows. The only one that understands her. Her too. You understand each other. You know her.” He sweeps the crumbs off the table. “Who else is there?”

Mao doesn’t have an answer. She turns to glance out of the window, and falls silent in contemplation. Days of stilted silences, gold and silver and bronze, and glitter in the stage lights. The curving of soft lips, a half-conscious fantasy, haunting her even in her darkest of moments, in the darkest of truths. Overexposed camera flashes, hard morning practices. Smiles reduced to polarized pixels in internet articles. Frayed strings, broken things. Broken things.

She clutches at the heated glass. The scent of coffee, first familiar, is now so overpowering that it makes her head swim, light with air and too many memories.

“Look!” Patrick’s says, and Mao snaps herself out of her reverie just in time to catch a glimpse of chestnut hair, the outline of a pale round face, and just briefly, the flash of searing eyes. They’re not outlined in black anymore as Yuna used to favor doing; she's stopped doing that ever since Moscow, in 2011. Her features are soft, softer than she's ever seen them.

“Did you see her? She certainly saw us. Looked kind of angry.” Patrick's eyes light up again, and Mao marvels at the difference it makes on his face, “you think it’s working?” Mao thinks of the sear of those eyes in the present, sharp enough to cut, and yet, it’s the soft smile in the past that holds her back from saying yes.

 

* * *

 

“Goddamnit.”

Mao doesn’t know if she finds herself outright regretting the decision to help Patrick out, but she definitely isn’t feeling positively about the rehearsal when she steps on the ice and Patrick skates up to her almost immediately, lines of his mouth curled into a grimace.

“Yuzuru.” he says, casting a thumb at her fellow team mate, who is holding Yuna’s hand as per the gala director’s instructions, “Javier, Denis, Yuzuru, who’s next, Scott?” He’s rambling again.

“Er-” Mao begins, but is interrupted loudly by a wildly zealous Patrick, “We’ve got to outdo them.” He outstretches a hand. “Come on.”

They end up, just like Javier and Denis with Yuna beforehand, pressed together in the semblance of a couple dancing together. Patrick decides to move his face mere centimeters away from hers, casting quick glances at Yuna before slowly, awkwardly maneuvering them in a mockery of a slow dance. With both their faces devoid of any sort of emotion, mouths composed into stoic seriousness and steely glints in their eyes, she wonders to herself, what a silly image they must make together.

“Patrick,” Mao hisses through her teeth, just enough to be noticed by him and only him,“too close.” She tilts her head slightly so that there is more than just a few inches of space separating their cheekbones. “Sorry,” is the detached, singular response she receives, with Patrick lost in his thoughts, and behind him, she can see Daisuke and Tatsuki trying their hardest not to burst out laughing.

Then, her eyes move beyond them and they’re locked, for the first time in a very long time, directly with a pair of eyes that she knows all too well; bare and familiar, she would know those eyes anywhere.

Mao feels her throat go dry.

Yuna’s lurking in the shadows unnoticed, half-in and half-out of the light and the dark of the rink, standing still amidst the motion surrounding her as skaters flit by. The glittering of her eyes in the dark betray nothing until the lights shift and Yuna’s face is thrown into the harsh lighting, she herself glowing with a fluorescent saturation. Mao watches in surprise, transfixed, as Yuna’s face changes from default apathy into something she can’t pin down. Confusion? Her eyes, usually lacking the old spark that had so endeared her to Mao in the past, are alive today and speak determination and life and a story that Mao understands, she understands completely, utterly, innately, but she can’t pin it down into words, clean-cut words, into solids. If she tried, it would be something like their story - one of two young girls with the weight of their countries’ expectations on their shoulders, now heavier with a weariness that has sunk into their bones and left them empty and aching. Their shared story - their shared beginning, their shared ending, coming for them.

Before she can blink, and before Patrick can notice, Yuna makes her way over, silver blades gliding over the ice.

There’s just a moment of silence while Mao peers at Yuna from over Patrick’s shoulder, everything echoing within her mind and it’s all just a bit too overwhelming, eyes wide and mouth slightly open. Yuna’s eyes speak of wonder and curiosity and something much more than just mere interest, and Mao thinks, quite inanely, _me too_.

“Hi.” Yuna says shyly. The standstill is broken and suddenly Mao remembers the quiet girl back before Gothenburg, who smiled so widely and spoke so softly, the shy girl that was lost somewhere in the frenzy of politics and rivalry and competition. Yuna-chan and Mao-chan, who were reduced somewhere along the way to Korea versus Japan.

Patrick jumps at the sound of Yuna’s voice and separates himself from Mao immediately, cheeks painted with red. “Oh, Yuna, what’s up?” Yuna nods in greeting, but her eyes are still fixated on Mao, who stares back.

A few more seconds pass by. “Hi.” Mao finally lets the word slip through her lips, and all it takes one syllable, like how yesterday took four minutes. One syllable is all it takes for Yuna to flash her that smile that she hasn’t seen in so long, grin wide and full of teeth, lips stretching all the way across her face. She really hasn’t seen it in so long - not since Tokyo, Torino, Gothenburg, cities all labels for when they were as close as can be, Mao recollects, and its sudden reappearance brings into mind how much she’s missed that smile, how much she’s missed knowing Yuna.

“Can I borrow Mao for a moment?” Yuna asks, and Patrick agrees completely, nodding feverishly. “Where are you guys going, rehearsal's just about to start!" the gala director says when they both make their way off the rink, and Yuna calls back “bathroom, just a few minutes!” as Mao follows.

The gala director turns back, distracted by a loud laughing fit that has broken out from Scott Moir (however, none of the laughing belongs to Patrick), and Yuna presses a finger to her lips. She leans against the boards of the rink, sliding down until she is sitting flat on the carpeted floor, hidden completely from view. Mao follows her example.

“It’s been a long time, for both of us.” Yuna starts out, “it’s only really been the two of us for so long, and now it’s a bit strange thinking about how it’s all over.”

Mao does nothing but nod in agreement. She smiles a little, waiting for Yuna to continue.

“You know,” here, Yuna looks oddly serious as she cups a hand around her mouth and whispers, “are you dating Patrick?”

The situation isn’t funny at all, but Mao bursts out into laughter before suppressing the giggles with her right hand. Yuna looks extremely confused and mildly startled, and not sure how to react, she gives an awkward chuckle, waiting for the explanation.

“We were doing such a bad job, I thought no one would believe it,” and Yuna is still confused, but Mao barrels on, “you know Patrick likes you? He wanted me to help him out.”

Yuna is lost, eyebrows scrunching together. “Why?”

“Something about Denis and Javier,” Mao breathes out, and Yuna rolls her eyes. “Patrick is very silly,” she says loftily before brushing the topic aside, “so you really don’t have a thing with him?” Yuna pauses, unsure. “I saw you two at the cafe, and earlier, just now, you guys seemed really close. Almost like a couple.”

“Nothing at all,” Mao reassures, and there’s a glint of something that seems oddly like relief in Yuna’s face as it relaxes,“it’s a long story.”

“Long story, tell me someday, when we have time.” Yuna’s eyes shine. “Maybe over some food. Kimchi pancakes. You liked them,” and Mao is surprised that Yuna even remembers, mouth falling open in a gasp, before nodding slightly. “It’s a promise.”

There is a loud shout and out of curiosity, they both peek over the boards, just the tops of their heads, and Patrick has Scott in a sort of stranglehold. The gala director is not amused. “For Olympic silver medalists,” he lectures angrily, “you two are behaving like five year olds!” Patrick bows in embarrassment and Scott rubs the back of his neck apologetically.

“Silver,” Mao mouths unconsciously and freezes. She doesn’t know how to continue, she doesn’t know how Yuna stands on silver, on second. After all, her silver in Vancouver was very different, and this time, she cannot relate. She does not know.“Are you happy?”

Yuna mulls it over. “Silver, yes.” Yuna replies, “but I don’t care. I’m done with everything. I’m free, and no one can take that away from me. I’m free.” she pulls her knees up to her chest. “Did you know that when it was all over, I cried? I sobbed loudly, like a little baby. It was so embarrassing, everyone saw.” Yuna frowns a little, “I think they thought I was crying about the silver, but I wasn’t. I was happy. I don’t know why I cried so much.”

Yuna looks happier, more alive than she ever has, eyes alive and full of stars, and Mao owes her an answer, at the very least, some closure. She probes her brain.

“Maybe,” Mao says, after collecting her thoughts, “maybe after holding back your emotions for so long, being composed for the face of the country ever since a young age, maybe the dam just broke.” She thinks back to her free program, the emotions she felt. “It’s over, and you can now let off the pressure of the world on your shoulders. No more struggles. Maybe the relief of that made pressed down on you, how free you are now, and that made you cry. Me too. We are both, in the end, still just young girls."

The words hang in the air. Before, where the stilted silences created tension, now there is only peace.

“Maybe,” Yuna says after a long pause, “maybe that’s exactly it.”

And before Mao can see it coming, she is pulled into a hug.

Not polite kind of “good job pat me on the back” type embrace that Mao is so used to receiving after tens and hundreds of medal ceremonies from a multitude of other people. It’s a real hug, bodies pressed together, limbs criss-crossed over backs, the type that forces one back for a second, full of enthusiasm and heart-clenching spirit, the type that hurts; a full force, full bodied embrace. The type of hug Yuna used to give before Gothenburg, before the whole damn world came crashing around them, before the golden dream came to a screeching halt. The type of embrace Yuna gives in Los Angeles and Vancouver and Torino, as if she too, is thinking of the past and carving a million lines of “sorry” into Mao’s shoulder blades.

Familiarity to Mao is what this hug sings of, and the realization is so bittersweet that it stings.

There are tears in her eyes, and she almost misses the whisper Yuna imprints into the shell of her ear, nestled in the crook of her shoulder, “Thank you.”

They break apart and Yuna seems to have trouble looking at Mao. And funny enough, like with Patrick, Mao catches a glimpse of the tip of Yuna’s ears, dusted with red, before Yuna draws a curtain of chestnut hair over to obscure them from sight.  _Huh_ , Mao thinks, _that’s strange_.

Yuna coughs. “Now, we should get back before they miss us,” She stands up abruptly. “Hey,” Mao calls out, tugging at Yuna’s elbow and Yuna slows down, eyebrow quirked in question. Her normally pale face is still strangely pink. “Let's take a picture together.” Mao points at the huge amount of cameras stationed around the rink, and Yuna only nods.

The cameramen and media people are more than occupied to take the picture for them, and the lady that they finally drag away from her media crew is more than happy to take a picture of the two rivals, who for now, look more like two friends. Mao makes her promise to send it to both of them.

They pull apart from each other, blades hitting ice, and just before Mao draws away, Yuna’s voice breaks through the excited background buzz of both media and skaters alike.

“Mao.” Yuna stops, expression wistful in the bright lights. Her eyes still shine.

“Otsukaresama.”

The word hangs in the air, lips quivering in the silence, and Mao smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
